Spielberg's Disclosure Day Has a Stark Line About Empathy

Steven Spielberg has given cinema some of its most memorable quotes, from "You're gonna need a bigger boat" to "Life finds a way." Disclosure Day adds a new, more somber entry. Forty-nine years after Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Roy Neary's exasperated, "Dammit!

I know this. I know what this is! This means something. This is important," Spielberg reframes his search for answers. Spielberg has said, "At the core of Disclosure Day is the question: Where has all our empathy gone?" The film suggests the aliens believe empathy is "the foremost evolutionary advantage," and it links a worldwide rift to a waning capacity to understand others.

Through the exchange between Hugo and Noah and lines such as "Don't be afraid of what you don't know," Disclosure Day delivers a stark claim: "The rejection of this understanding is leading to our extinction." Using a single resonant line to unsettle the audience is a tactic seen in science fiction classics like Blade Runner and The Thing.

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